


How to Survive the Lords and Ladies, Discworld Style

by Readertee



Category: Discworld- Terry Pratchett
Genre: Folklore, GNU Terry Pratchett, Gen, Lords and Ladies Discworld, Tiffany Aching series Discworld
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-14
Updated: 2015-03-14
Packaged: 2018-03-17 20:20:14
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 430
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3542558
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Readertee/pseuds/Readertee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A list of things to do if ever faced with the Discworld or old folktale versions of El- Fair Folk. Assuming you can't stay far away. Seriously, stay far, far away.</p>
            </blockquote>





	How to Survive the Lords and Ladies, Discworld Style

1) Don't name the Fair Folk. They come when called.

2) Don't make deals with the Fair Folk, especially the creepy Lady who appears in the stone circle. Her voice is too desperate, too urgent, too hungry to be making a fair deal, and in the end you will pay everything, and receive only fear in return.

3) Don't mess with stone circles made of thunderbolt iron. They are there for a reason: they keep out the Gentry.

4) When crop circles start appearing, do not enter them. They are at a place where the world is thin, and you don't want to know what's on the other side. Ditto for mushroom circles and stone circles [1].

5) For something to come out of the circle, something must go in. Therefore, if something goes in something else will likely come out. You won't like anything that might come out. Don't let anything go in.

6) The Fair Folk and their creatures do not like iron. At all. It is your best defence.

7) The Gentry provoke wonder; they cause marvels; they create fantasies; they project glamour; they weave enchantment; they beget terror. In short, don't trust the descriptions, for the words have changed their meaning. No-one ever said they were nice.

8) Elf-shot, those little stones that look like arrowheads, are exactly that. Being shot with them is very dangerous.

9) Don't listen to the singing, or the speaking voices for that matter, of the Shining Ones. It sounds wonderful, but it will try to make you do things, and besides it's horrible to hear without the layer of glamour.

10) If you end up in the Other Place, don't eat the food. Don't drink the water. Don't fall asleep. You likely won't leave again.

11) Never get in the middle of a Morris dance. You are likely to offend the Summer Lady, the Wintersmith, and Robin Goodfellow [2].

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Footnotes

[1] mushroom circles, while not mentioned in Discworld, are generally accepted to be both tree graves and gates to the Other World, which makes sense as (a) they grow where tree stumps are rotting and (b) the Fair Folk like and congregate around certain kinds of trees.

[2] also not in Discworld, but Robin, or Puck, or the Green Man, is the one who keeps the trees alive though winter. Wassailing is meant to keep him fed and remind the trees what they're for, as well as feed the poor who performed the tradition (who were the same folk who did Morris dancing). His opposite number is sometimes called Crow.

**Author's Note:**

> I recently re-read the first Witches book, and when Pterry took a walk with DEATH, I thought of the Nac Mac Feegle belief that this world is Heaven, and from there wandered to the Fair Folk as portrayed in Discworld, which is really much more similar to folklore than the version romanticised by the Elizabethans through to the Victorians and Fantasty a la Tolkein. I decided to write something about them, because I love how Pterry wrote them and my first read of them inspired me to find out more. Thank you Pterry! GNU.


End file.
